Chapter 138: Complications

Chapter 138: Complications



Cherry and the other ladies boarded the Sunny whilst Cabernet lugged Bartholomew Kuma over her shoulder and brought him along.

"I really hope he hasn't sent out a distress beacon or something to inform the world government of our presence here..." Robin commented whilst looking at Kuma, which made the others, with the exception of Cherry, quite nervous at the thought.

"I've disabled his cybernetic bits temporarily, so that won't be an issue. Besides, unless an admiral shows up I should be able to handle whatever may come our way." Cherry brushed off the concerns.

They went into the dining room and settled down whilst Cherry went to the kitchen to grab some food and drinks.

"Speaking of that, since when were you strong enough to beat the Hero of the Marines, Monkey D. Garp? He might be old now, but from what I've heard he certainly hasn't weakened that much." Serene asked.

Perona was shocked at hearing that fact. She hadn't seen the broadcast of the war at Marineford and the newspapers naturally wouldn't mention such a thing even if it would spread word of mouth.

"Bah! The old man is too soft. He went easy on me just because I'm friends with his grandson." Cherry said, whilst rooting around in the pantry for snacks.

"THAT was going easy on you?! You looked like someone put you into a blender when you came out of that fight!" Serene exclaimed, shivering when she imagined how much it must have hurt.

"Well, he couldn't be too casual about it, could he? He had the admirals and Fleet Admiral Sengoku breathing down his neck at the time. Maybe he'd get away with not fighting Luffy seriously, him being his beloved grandson and all, but he'd get into a bit of trouble if he showed weakness against me." Cherry said, bringing an armful of sodas from Franky's stash and some snack foods that would go bad if they weren't eaten soon.

"I see." Serene said, popping open a soda.

"What's been going on with you, then?" Cherry asked.

"Fighting punks mostly. Shakky has been teaching me some more direct martial arts. Turns out she used to be an empress of the Kuja, can you believe that?" Serene said, then herNôv(el)B\\jnn

expression became somewhat depressed. "But..."

"What's wrong?" Robin asked gently.

"... miss him..." Serene muttered inaudibly.

"I'll have to find that Vegapunk fellow and hope he has the means and the desire to store his memories..." Cherry thought aloud.

"So you aren't able to do anything for him?" Robin asked curiously, with some pity towards

the large man.

"No, this isn't as simple as I thought. Vegapunk isn't a man to be underestimated it seems. The question is should I go right now, or should I make a breakthrough first? I'll need to find a

devil fruit or two if I want to do that, though." Cherry said.

"Devil fruit?" Robin asked. She knew that Cherry had Cabernet and her sword as devil fruit objects, but not how they related to her cultivation.

Cherry took a minute or two to briefly explain to Robin about how she used devil fruit to push her cultivation realm to perfection with the energy burst from its transformation process.

"Can I get one of those 'blood bound' weapons too?" Robin asked.

Although she didn't normally use weapons, she thought she might be able to produce a blood bound weapon from her bloomed limbs which would greatly increase her arsenal.

"Sure, figure out what you want and I'll walk you through the ritual after I make or obtain it for you." Cherry said, receiving a peck on the cheek from Robin.

"On the topic of Vegapunk, don't you want to meet him yourself? I'm sure there are plenty of things you'd like to talk about with him, considering the way you are with Chopper." Robin

observed.

"Yes, I would like to. However, I'm not so sure I'd be well received, him being a World Government scientist and all. That's assuming I can breach whatever defenses lie between me and him too." Cherry said.

Robin raised an eyebrow at her.

"Okay, okay. I'm pretty confident on breaking into just about anywhere, but that won't do me any good if he gets mad about me breaking his stuff. Or if the World government catches wind

of it." Cherry sighed.

"I will just think about it overnight. There's no real rush here, Kuma isn't going to die or anything. At least not as far as I can tell..." Cherry said, tilting her head whilst gazing at Kuma.